Creative Thinking

In the Monday, Nov. 7, 2011, Minneapolis Star Tribune was an column by Harvey Mackay about the movie, Moneyball.    I often read Harvey's column as he is a sales person and I learned to appreciate good salespeople from my eight years spent selling encyclopedias and children's books for World Book-Childcraft.  I have also wanted to see the movie, Moneyball, but have not found anyone who wants to go see it with me.

Anyway - Harvey uses elements from the movie to make some good points that fit in a congregation as well as in a business.   Here is a quote from his column:  "When an organization has spectacular challenges such as an inadequate budget, creative thinking and bold actions are frightening and daunting to even the most unflappable managers.  But you can't afford to do things the ways you've always done them. If that had worked, you wouldn't have all those challenges would you?"

I think this is true for many congregations.  I have worked in two congregations which looked back to how things used to be.  Older members wanted  the congregation to look and function like it did 30 years ago - to be the way it used to be.   There was also the mantra, "We've never done it that way before. "  or " We tried that twenty years ago and it did not work. "   Harvey gives some good questions to ask yourself and your committee or team.
1.  What would happen if we tried  (fill in the blank)?  Would the firm fall apart? Or would it open new paths?
2.  Is there another way to do what we've always done?
3.  What is the craziest way we could proceed?  Might that be worth considering?

I agree with Harvey when he says to let everyone contribute and use every available resource.  In our congregations, the greatest resource are the members.  How can we more effectively involve more people?  We can not wait for people to step up.  We have to go invite them.

 Remember we will never catch any fish if we do not get our line wet. Also no one catches a fish every time.  Be persistent.

Women's Reality part 2

I am finally getting back to reading in the Women's Reality book that I started back in August.  Anne Wilson Schaef relates religion, math and the white male system (WMS) as interconnected.  She says that the WMS has faith in the validity of numbers.  I am not sure what to think about that.  I do not think that is true for all men.

She goes on in chapter two to talk about the Original Sin of being born female and how that affects women.
Several items that I noted:
1.  Women do not like or trust each other.  I wonder if that is as true today.  I have close female friends but I have not gotten friendly with the female pastors with whom I have worked.  I think that they find me intimidating. My experience has been that they get very angry with me for things I say that they think are slights or insulting towards them.   I have working to establish better connections to women in the last 8 years.  I realized that I was putting most of my energy into friendships with males and made a conscious effort to put more energy into female friendships.
2.  Women have basic feelings of self-doubt.  There is something wrong with them fundamentally.  I can agree with this.  I know that I had a lot of anxiety about people liking me for who I am not for what I can do.   I am afraid people will not like me if I mess up, say the wrong thing, show too much emotion, or challenge their comments.
3.  Women cope with the Original Sin of being born female in five ways:
       a) developing a capacity to remember details of events
       b) becoming very good
       c) being very concerned about fairness and issues of  injustice
       d)  following the rules
       e) developing the capacity for understanding and gathering lots of information to assist in that understanding.
4.  Women blame their unhappiness and lack of fulfillment on some flaw within their character.  They develop excuses to explain who they are.
5.  Women need to be validated by a male to have worth.  I have an interesting story to connect to this.  When my daughter Katie was in seventh grade (about 1993), she came home from school one day to tell me that she had to get a boyfriend.  I wondered why.  She said, very seriously, that her self-esteem would be better if she had a boyfriend.  I think that as a younger woman, male validation was much more important to me than it is now that I am in my 60's.
I think that many of these coping mechanism are true for me.  I think it has changed as I have aged.
More about this book in the future.

Goal Setting

This year in my position at University Lutheran Church of Hope, I have been asked to set some goals.  I have often set goals for myself but this is the first time the Personnel Committee and the Lead Pastor asked us staff to write goals and to share them with each other.

 I wrote some goals and later looked back at them.  I discovered that every goal I wrote involved other people.  None of the goals were something that I could do alone or wanted to do alone.  They were mostly about helping other people do ministry.  That is a new thing for me.  In the past when I have set goals, they have usually been things that I was going to do without thinking about who could work with me on it.

I wonder if my leadership style is changing.  Umm.......

Mentor vs Coach

I recently had a discussion about the difference between a mentor and a coach.  I have tended to use the two terms interchangeable thinking that "coach" was just a new term for what used to be called a mentor.
After a discussion with Beata Rydeen who is a life coach, I have changed my mind.  A mentor is usually someone older and more experienced who can guide and assist a person beginning a career.  A coach walks along side a person but may not be in the same work field.  A coach asks questions and listens carefully.

When I first began my first paid position in a congregation, I knew that I could benefit from the wisdom of  Charlotte Erlandson, even though I was already 40 years old with a master degree in pastoral ministry.  i asked Charlotte to be my mentor for one year.  I meet with her monthly and we discussed issues in congregational ministry - particularly faith formation ministry.  My call at the time was as a Youth and Family Director who also preached once a month, was the assisting minister at worship each week, and provided resources for the Sunday School program.  I was working toward being commissioned as an Associate in Ministry in the ELCA.  The time I spend with her was invaluable.  She warned me about pitfalls and asked me to observe her at a committee meeting.  We talked about relationships of a spouse with parishioners when you work on a staff, of how parishioners will criticize the pastor when he or she go on vacation to triangle you into a problem, and how to build up leaders on your ministry teams.

Now I am working with Beata as a "coach" and it is very different.  It is not therapy but looking more deeply at who I am and how I function. There is not a focus on improving at specific skills related to my position but a large thinking about who I am, what is important to me and how I am make better use of my skills and talents.
I am grateful that I have had the opportunity to experience both a mentoring relationship and a coaching process.

Women's Reality

I pulled an older book off my shelf - Women's Reality by Anne Wilson Schaef published in 1981.  This book is subtitled "an emerging female system in the white male society."  I am not sure that I ever read it.  So why did it catch my eye last week?
I have been working with a life coach - Beata Rydeen - for almost one year.  She is a member of my congregation and my staff support person.  I decided that I wanted to do some reading about women and leadership.   She challenged me to pick a book that would be the most challenging for me to read.  I decided on this one.
So why might it be challenging?  As a lay women in a church system that is still is dominated by male pastors and bishops, I have struggled for 20 years.  In what ways do I support this male dominated system?  What can I do to change this?  How do I relate to male pastors and female pastors as a lay woman?  I have lots of questions and not many answers.
One of the ideas rattling around in my head is to write a book about lay women in church leadership.  All the books that I have seen or read about leadership in the church are written by male clergy.  What would a church leadership book look like written from a female lay perspective?  Beata suggested I interview other women in lay leadership roles in the church. What a great idea!  I have to put that on my to-do-list.
But any way - back to the book. 
Insight for today - One of the four myths of the white male system is that it is possible to be totally logical, rational and objective.  I bought into this myth big time as a young woman in high school who was going off to college.  I had an image of myself as a brain being carried around by my body.  I studied hard and buried myself in books as I was afraid of all my emotions and the earthy body within which I was encased.  That image broke apart the fall of my junior year of college at a spiritual retreat.  I had a vision of Jesus laughing at me and a group of accepting people.  My self-image changed but 40 years later I realized that I need to go back to think about that some more.  I wonder how that self-image of being a brain carried around by my body affects me today.
To be continued.

Mentors needed

As I continue to reflect on the article I found by Leonard Hjalmarson, I wish to write about our need for mentors.  Hjalmarson says, "The role of mentors is to point searchers to God and encourage their dependence on Him. The role of mentors is to show by example how to walk forward without certainty, but with faith and hope and love.  The role of mentors is to lift others up, to serve without consideration of recognition or reward. If we can model this kind of service, we will help to birth a new kind of leader by our example."  To me, he is describing an ideal mentor.  In my experience, good leaders do not always make good mentors.  To me leadership is getting things done but through encouraging others and creating teams.  Hjalmarson is clear about the need for dependence on God and a sense of humility as a leader.

When I began a position in a congregation in 1993, I found a mentor.  I asked Charlotte Erlandson to work with me for one year.  She graciously agreed and we met once a month for one year.  We talked about topics and issues that I brought to the table.  I observed her conducting a committee meeting.  It was a most beneficial relationship for me. She did lift me up and received no reward except my appreciation.

I have tried to be a leader who works with and alongside others.  As a parent, I always cleaned along with my kids.  We washed walls together, prepared fruit for canning, and cleaned the house. In the congregation, I wipe down tables, run the dishwasher and work along others.  I like being in front telling stories and running the show but I think I model leadership best when I do the less glamorous stuff like cleaning the church refrigerator.

Leading from the Margin part two

I did a "Google" search for the term, Leading from the Margin.  It seems to me that I had once read a book with that title but could only find an article titled, "Leading from the Margins" by Leonard Hjalmarson.  I have no idea who this person is but I found the article interesting.   He speaks from a postmodern perspective about the Christian church and its leadership structure.  Ministry is decentralizing and church structures are dissolving - not his words but mine trying to capture his ideas in a brief summary.   I found myself relating to his ideas and saying to myself, “yes, that is how I function”  or “yes, that is how the Lutheran Association of Christian Educators is functioning.”   He states that there is a relocation of authority in the church and a disentanglement of leadership from authority.  People without lots of financial resources or academic credentials or a hierarchical position are stepping up to become leaders in a new way.

Leadership is not power or confidence or knowledge or position.  Leadership is more about holding space.  He  quotes Jen Lemen (May, 2004, online http://www.jenlemen.com)  “Not space so you can examine me and try to be just like me as your leader, but space so that you can think about who you need to become, about who you are already in relationship to this alternative reality we call the kingdom…”  I thought this was really interesting.  I have never thought of myself as a leader just “holding space.”  Ummm…I have to think about that.

Leonard goes on to discuss that today strong leaders are needed but the strength of a leaders will not come from power or certainty but from building of a community where there is recognition, worthiness, involvement, and growth with a loving give and take of person-to-person interaction over a long period of time. Usually leaders want control and success but future leaders will need to embrace insecurity and dependence on others.

This makes me think about my leadership and ponder how I function as a leader.   

Five Practices of Leadership

I will be attempting to post again every week some thoughts about leadership in congregational settings.
While I have been on medical leave, I read the newest journal from Lifelong Faith (see www.lifelongfaith.com).
There is a summary of two books by Kouzes and Posner about leadership.  Their book, The Leadership Challenge lists five practices by effective leaders which they drew from their extensive research with leaders in organizations and how they mobilize others to get things done.  Their work really resonates with my personal experiences in leadership, my own research, and other things I have read.  Kouzes and Posner list five succinct practices:
1.  Model the Way - People first follow the person and then the plan.  In my research for my doctoral dissertation modeling as a key component of effective leadership became clear to me.
2.  Envision the Future  - imagine exciting and ennobling possibilities.

3.  Challenge the Process - look for creative ideas, experiment, be willing to fail and learn from failure.
4. Enable Others to Act - promote cooperative goals and build a team by nurturing others.
5.  Encourage the Heart - show appreciation, celebrate values and victories.
There is much more information listed.  I have just created a very brief summary.
For me the vision part is the hardest.  I get caught up in the doing but visioning takes time. Not just to have a vision but to communicate that vision in a way others can "catch it."  That is where I have the hardest part.  My visions tend to put people off.  They are too big, too hard , too vague or "too" something that others back off rather than jump on board.   Any one had some success in that area?



  

Power and leadership

This post will continue looking at my role as a female lay leader in a church culture which is still male dominated in many ways and power of position found in its hierarchical structures.

I learned some interesting things about power from Phyllis Anderson who is now the president of Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary. She did a presentation on power at Luther Seminary back in the 90's.  She helped me to understand that there are different kinds of power.  My authority is based on who I am but power and authority are different. Authority is one way that we have power and are able to influence others. 

There is legitimate authority where society agrees to give a certain level of respect to a certain person.  There is not as much of this type of authority available in our society because of cynicism.  As church leaders we recognize the legitimate authority of every believer because of our baptism into the priesthood of believers.  This should provide us with a sense of  mutuality as we work together in a church but our egos and fears get in the way.   In a congregation certain people have more power than others.  They either claim that power or are given that power by others.  This can be a good thing or cause lots of harm. Reflecting on power and its use is rarely done in a congregation but would be a great topic for a church council retreat.

Power  or our ability of influence can be either intentional or unintentional.  Intentional power has four manifestations: force, manipulation, persuasion and authority.  Authority is given to us from five areas:  coercion or fear, inducement such as a paycheck, competence,  personal attraction, and legitimate authority. 

From which area does your authority come?  For me, it would be from my competence,  from my sense of  personal attraction as people are attracted to people who like people and I really enjoy people; and some legitimate authority as a staff person in a congregation.  

But the voice of the pastor will usually carry more weight than mine.  In most cases that is the way it should be but it depends on how the pastor handles that power.  Is power shared?  Is the power of others recognized and valued?  Is there a sense that the gifts of all are given for the good of all ?  This is not an easy thing to figure out or to live out.  As sinful beings we all fall short of the ideal. I also fall short.  I am so glad for forgiveness and being able to begin anew each day.   

I will continue these ideas as I move into the later part of June.

Life is complicated

I have not posted in a while because of many responsibilities as the president of the Lutheran Association of Christian Educators and also I was very ill.
  My intention is to post regularly after the end of June.  I am having knee replacement surgery next week and will be limiting my activities until the end of June.

Leading from the Margin

As a female lay rostered person in the ELCA, I feel that I lead from the margins.  I am not quite legitimate. When I was a student at Luther Seminary, I had other female students in the MDiv track tell me,"One day, you will be one of us."   That made me feel like a second class person in the church.  When I was in the rostering process, the psychological evaluation needed to find a reason why I decided not to be ordained.   In his report, the psychologist decided that I must have had a poor relationship with my father that I chose not to be ordained.  As I talked to two other women in the Associate in Ministry track like me, they also had statements in their psychological evaluations which indicated something was wrong in that they decided not to be ordained. Obviously deciding not to be ordained was considered deviant behavior by this psychologist.

Another story - About 10 years ago the leadership of the congregation in which I was serving, wanted to participate in a program at Luther Seminary which placed students in congregations for their contextual education experience. A student had contacted the congregation and was very interested in the outreach we were doing in the Liberian community.  The Senior Pastor felt he was too busy and asked if I wanted to be the mentor for this person and attend the group meetings.  I said yes.  When I went to the orientation meeting for the mentors, the director of the program at Luther Seminary said to me while I was checking in, "Now Diane don't be offended if I refer to everyone as Pastor because everyone else is a pastor."   Of course, I was instantly offended.  During the orientation it was made very clear that all the mentors were pastors and were expected to be pastors.   I went back to the Senior Pastor and told me that I had to withdraw from being a mentor as I was not ordained and this would be a hindrance to our participation.   Our congregation withdrew much to the dismay of the student.

 Even now after 20 years of serving in four congregations, there are positions in the church for which I would not be considered because I am not ordained.  Only clergy need to apply.  Sometimes that is stated clearly in the job description and sometimes told to me.  So what does this all mean for me as a strong female lay leader in the Church?
To be continued...

Key leadership skills

I have been reading "The Four-Fold Way" a book by Angeles Arrien.  I have been re-reading and pondering this book for about 8 months and learning more about being an effective leader.  It does not have a Christian perspective but comes out of a Native American spiritual perspective.

This week I have studied the Way of the Healer which has an emphasis on the power of love.  We reach out in love to people when we do five things.
1.  Acknowledge them
2.  Show gratitude
3.  Validate others
4.  Recognize others
5.  Have an accepting attitude.

We are better leaders when we acknowledge others in four areas:
1.  Skills
2.  Character qualities
3.  Appearance
4.  Impact we make on each other

As I thought about what I was reading I created a list for myself of some key leadership skills that I have learned from multiple places.
1.  Showing up -  Leaders are those who keep showing up, even when tired, discouraged or bored.
2.  Paying attention - Leaders are observant and notice what is doing on around them.  They also pay attention to others and how people around them are interacting.  Who looks at who when a person is talking reveals power structures.
3.  Reframing - Leaders look at a situation, issue, problem, or conflict from multiple angles. What is going on here?  What is the problem? Whose problem is it?  Is there a way to turn around to see it from the other person's perspective?
4.  Acknowledge and thank others.  See a more specific list above.  I feel that every thank you note I write is time well spent.
5. Invite others into leadership and learn to delegate.  This relates to acknowledging the skills of others.  None of us can do it all or do it alone.
6.  Model the behavior you want others to demonstrate.
7.  Nurture yourself spirituality, physically and emotionally.  Also make sure you nurture others on your ministry teams.

Practices of Successful Leaders

I would like to continue my comments on the #1086 posting  of Tomorrow’s Professor about Practices of Successful (Group) Leaders
To create this list Kouzes and Posner (2002) surveyed and interviewed more than 500 leaders of organizations and business.  They found five common practices of successful leaders.
1. Challenging the process
2. Inspiring a shared vision
3. Enabling others to act
4. Modeling the way
5. Encouraging the heart

I already discussed the practice of inspiring a shared vision in a ministry team.   Leaders will explore new ways of doing things and is willing to take risks.  Problems are seen as an opportunity as well as a challenge.  Leaders will need the skills of creativity and problem solving.  “It is not necessary for a leader to come up with every new idea or to provide the ingenuity for every shift in direction. Rather, the leader can be a facilitator of creative process, using strategies such as asking provocative questions (such as “What has been your most memorable event today?” or “What would make this meeting most enjoyable?”); setting up experiments (such as every person contributing one object that is in his or her present possession as a way to ascertain a common group theme); and involving people in retreats (everyone could make a sandcastle that represents an ideal concept such as building bridges between different groups of students); brainstorming sessions (such as one focused on how many functions can be identified for a roll of dental floss); or even art exercises that elicit more creative, right-brain ideas.” Change creates anxiety so leaders are able to show that the stress of change can be managed.  A leader also helps the team determine which new ideas are worthwhile and useful.

In my study of leadership, I found that modeling is crucial for helping team members move in new directions.  A leader needs to demonstrate new skills and give the team members opportunity to practice.  Kouzes and Posner list five ways that a leader can model good practices.
1. A leader communicates in a manner that is clear, understandable, and up-front. This can be accomplished by stating the purpose and motivation for any group activity or agenda. The leader avoids covert, hypocritical, and ambiguous messages.
2. A leader demonstrates a caring and respectful attitude toward others when in face-to-face contact and also shows a sense of consideration and dignity for others outside the immediate environment.
3. A leader shows engagement and works intently toward completing the tasks of the group. A true leader energizes a group by modeling the commitment and effort needed to make things happen, inspiring the group to establish strong norms for hard work and achievement. However, to be productive, a leader must also pay attention to counterproductive factors such as job stress, burnout or fatigue, or emotional tension, and work to reduce of prevent them.
4. A leader acts to maintain behavior that reflects fair play and integrity and established standards for ethical conduct.
5. A leader models effectiveness, the single most important action a leader can demonstrate.”

The fifth and last element in this posting was recognition of team members for doing the little things that make a difference and for reaching goals and succeeding in major accomplishments. “Sincere acts of unselfish kindness, observations and gestures reflecting interest, and acknowledgment of individual uniqueness are all ways a leader is responsive and encouraging to members.”

I thought that this information worthwhile to consider when reflecting on my leadership practices.  It is only through reflection on how I function as a leader that my skills will improve. 

Creating a shared vision

When working with a ministry team, a shared vision is very important.  When there is no shared vision, the team falls apart or does not work well together.  The last two years of my 20 plus years of ministry, I have been trying a different approach to this issue.  I could not find a chairperson for the children's ministry team so I decided to chair it myself for a year.  I decided to begin each meeting with check-in time like it was a small group and then spend 20-30 minutes in bible talk.  I use the mutual invitation method created by Eric Law so that everyone gets a chance to speak and everyone is invited for the check in and the bible talk.
For the bible talk, I use part of the gospel text for Sunday.  I begin by reading the bible text and then asking "What word, phrase or idea stood out for you when this passage was read?"  We all share on that, even the children that are on the team.  Then I read it again and ask, "What is God calling you to do, be or change through this passage?"  Sometimes I do not use the second question if the group is bigger than six or there is a lot of conversation around the first question.
To my amazement, we still get all out work done, we are laughing a lot more, and the team has really gelled.  Through the check in time and the bible talk, the team members seem to have a better sense of what is important to each of us and where we want to see our ministry go. Decisions are made quicker and more people volunteer for the tasks to be done.  We only meet for 90 minutes and spend 30 minutes doing the opening conversations but yet all the work is getting done.
I think that we are learning what values we hold in common, what passions and skills we bring to the table, and how to work together.  This has caused a large shift in my understanding of how a team works.

Inspiring a shared vision

I read this article on leadership a couple of days ago.  I was from a newletter called "Tomorrow's Professor" that I get free from Standford University. This most current newsletter talked about leadership. I thought that I would share it with you.
In the church we often talk about developing a shared vision.  We spend a lot of time creating mission statements. This except from the longer article looks at creating a shared vision in an classroom but I think it would work for any committee in a congregation.

"Promoting and directing a group to clearly identify its mission and purpose is an important responsibility of a leader. Kouzes and Posner (2002) referred to this as inspiring a shared vision. For example, when a teacher begins a class discussion period, the first question could be, “When you leave this class period, what would you like to have accomplished?”  It is not sufficient for a leader to impose a goal on the rest of the group members. Successful leaders engage followers in a manner that elicits the personal commitment and energy of each member toward some shared ends, The goals of all members need not necessarily be the same, but there must be a mutual acceptance that all can benefit from the interaction and cooperation of the group activity.

Checklist for Determining Group Commitment to an Idea

•Value or principle-The idea is important to a core belief group membership.
•Credibility-The idea is grounded in evidence of its worth. There is a rational, justifiabie basis for pursuing the idea.
•Inclusiveness: The idea is shared so that all members can be a part of the vision.
•Clarity—The idea is communicated with enough illustration to be vivid in the minds of the group members. Clarity provides a common certainty For the context, including purpose, action, and outcome.
•Positive Perspective—The idea is stated in an affirmative way that communicates the hopes and anticipations of members.
•Passion—The idea taps the emotions and the hearts of group members, providing a driving force for accomplishing the vision. Passion can be the zest and enthusiasm that keeps members engaged and prevents apathy and indifference."

Reference: Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. (2002). The Leadership Challenge (3rd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Taken from TOMORROW'S PROFESSOR(sm) eMAIL NEWSLETTER
http://cgi.stanford.edu/~dept-ctl/cgi-bin/tomprof/postings.php

Archives of all past postings can be found at:
http://cgi.stanford.edu/~dept-ctl/cgi-bin/tomprof/postings.php

Why this blog

I have been thinking about leadership in various forms since early in the 1990's when I stumbled across a book in the library by Warren Bennis titled, "On Becoming a Leader."  (1989, Addison Wesley)    Since first reading the book by Bennis, I have collected many books on leadership, articles and gotten a doctorate in educational leadership from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN.
Warren Bennis stimulated my thinking about leadership in many ways.  He say that leaders are different than managers.  Managers seek training but leaders seek education.
This is one of the quotes from his book that I have often pondered: "It is one of the paradoxes of life that good leaders rise to the top in spite of their weakness while bad leaders rise because of their weakness." (p.47)
So follow me as I explore through a blog what leadership looks like in a congregation from the perspective of a female lay person who is commissioned as an Associate in MInistry in the ELCA and  who sees herself as a leader, an educator and a faithful follower of Jesus Christ.